


A Larger Cage than the Alternative

by aderyn_merch



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 03:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17276243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn_merch/pseuds/aderyn_merch
Summary: I drove past a Juvenile Detention Center the other day. And I couldn't help but think...





	A Larger Cage than the Alternative

Andrew was considering picking up smoking. According to the law he was too young for it, but he was already on the wrong side of the law anyway. The only real problem in that scheme was that there was no way to get tobacco in Juvie.   
So he pressed the fingers of his right hand to his lips instead, right elbow resting on his left arm as it folded over his stomach. The insides of his arms were turned against his chest. There were certain scars that would earn respect in this place, but the still red lines traced up his veins weren’t the right type.  
Andrew was listening warily to the starting striker of the center’s exy team. Jonathan Melarky had played on his high school’s varsity team before drunkenly hitting a police car with his stepdad’s truck. But he still had the swagger of a freshman on a top performing sports team.   
And in Andrew’s opinion, Melarky was one of the ugliest bastards ever born to man. It didn’t help that orange wasn’t the poor boy’s color.  
“What the fuck is the man thinking? Putting you in goal? You ain’t ever held a racket before! You’re dead, newbie. You won’t even survive the first week of practice.”  
Andrew idly wondered if Melarky’s parents were divorced because his dad took one look at his kid and hightailed it.   
“He wants you to back us up? If I were him, I’d never let you leave the bench– hell you wouldn’t be in uniform in the first place.”  
They were all in uniform. They were in Juvie. Andrew didn’t point this out.   
“You’re barely big enough to hold a racket!”  
People who smoke are 87% more likely to die. But everyone is 100% likely to die at some point. Maybe the odds weren’t good, but Andrew would take what he could get.  
“We’ll be the laughing stock of the district.”  
Andrew had had enough. He didn’t care about this exy he’d been signed up for. And he didn’t care for Melarky’s pointless rant. Andrew was on the team because it was either that or stay in a cell. And the center didn’t like its inmates sitting in cells. They had to be ‘actively improving themselves.’  
“Piss off,” Andrew said.  
“What, did, you, just, say, to me?”   
“I said piss off. As in, ‘fuck off,’ or ‘go the fuck away.”  
“That ain’t how this thing works–“  
“Take your stupid hierarchy with you.”   
Melarky smiled. He was gunning for a fight. “Make me. Peanut.”  
Over the next two years, Andrew would catalogue the best ways to injure every single one of his fellow inmates. Especially those on the exy team. Strikers needed their arms and hands for accuracy. Backliners needed their ankles to make quick turns. All of them needed a working set of knees.   
But he didn’t know that yet. So he beat whatever part of Melarky he could get to until the guards tore them apart. It was months before they even considered letting him play in an ‘away’ game, partly because of the fighting and partly because of his lack of skill. He didn’t make any particular effort. The court, the cell–they were both walled in. He didn’t care which cage they put him in.


End file.
